Lee, Purple Pamela C. 10 – St.

Agatha of Sicily

“difference and similarities between the

Story of the Flood and Noah’s Ark”
Similarities with the Noahchian narrative include divine anger with
humans, and the building of a multi-decked compartmentalised boat,
sealed with pitch, which served to save people and fauna from an
exceptional flood. In both legends ravens and doves were involved in
determining when the flood was over. Upon landfall after the flood a
thankful sacrifice was offered to the gods (Gilgamesh) / God (Noah).

Notwithstanding these similarities, the differences between Gilgamesh

and Noah’s Flood are substantial. Right from the start, the Noah’s
Flood narrative is emphatically monotheistic, whereas the whole
Gilgamesh narrative revolves around the whims, activities and
reactions of an entire pantheon of gods. All of them seem remarkably
fallible, without a trace of holiness, and are more reminiscent of
Wagnerian melodrama than of the Judeo-Christian God.

As to specific differences, the Gilgamesh boat was 120 x 120 cubits,

whereas the ark was 300 x 50 cubits. The Gilgamesh boat had six decks,
and was made of wood and reeds with punting poles (construction
materials similar to those in recent boats of the Iraqi marsh-lands).
Noah’s ark had three decks, was made of cypress wood, and did not
use punting poles.
The Gilgamesh boat was loaded with gold, silver, beer, oil, wine,
family, relatives and craftsmen (reed-workers and carpenters), and ‘all
the livestock that he had’, that is ‘all the beasts and animals of the
field’, implying oxen and sheep. The ark was loaded with Noah’s eight
family members and ‘all creatures who had breath of life’.

The geography of the Gilgamesh flood is implied to be a local river

(early version), or ‘the sea’ (later version). Only in the Noah account is
the flood ‘over the entire world’.

Utnapishtim, the human hero of the Gilgamesh epic, entrusted closure

of the boat’s door to his boat-master, Puzur-amurri. The door of
Noah’s ark was shut by God himself. In the Gilgamesh story the flood
lasted six days. In the case of the ark, the flood lasted 150 days.

The Gilgamesh boat grounded on Mount Nimush, whereas the ark

grounded upon Mount Ararat. In the Gilgamesh legend the successive
birds sent out to determine the subsiding floodwaters were a dove, a
swallow and a raven. In the Noachian story the order is raven followed
by three successive doves. In the epic of Gilgamesh the flood victims
were all turned to clay, whereas in the Noah’s flood story, they all
drowned – but maybe this amounts to the same thing?

The flood of the Gilgamesh saga ends in futile bickering between the
gods over why Gilgamesh et al had been allowed to escape, and the
purpose of the flood in the first place. The parable of Noah’s flood
concludes with God’s covenant with humanity.